Source: www.aqua.cl

The report includes the ranking of the ten best and ten worst salmon farming companies in terms of transparency, the “Top 11” of salmon feed suppliers and the results of companies operating in Chile.

For the seventh consecutive year, Seafood Intelligence has evaluated transparency in the 36 leading salmonid producers and in eleven fish feed companies.

The objective of this international consulting firm specialized in seafood products is to analyze the transparency of companies in the industry when communicating their policies and results in sustainability, such as reports, health information, relations with communities, human resources, financial information, among others. In this regard, its editor, Bertrand Charron, points out that one of the items they most consider are sustainability reports, since they understand them as a “key element for the preservation and growth of the business in the long term, properly reconciling and balancing the interests of communities, the environment and competitiveness”.

In 2017, Seafood Intelligence used 131 criteria (150 in 2016, many of which have been combined into one) for rating the “Top 36 salmon farming companies + Top 11 salmon feed suppliers”. These criteria evolve annually, and the formula for calculating the transparency rating encompasses four main dimensions plus bonus points based on an assessment of each company’s efforts, progress and types of performance presentations.

The four dimensions considered are: Representativeness of reporting; Quality / Quantity of data; Timeliness and frequency of reporting; and Importance of the report.

“The large amount of information, indexed and analyzed over the last seven years, allows its use in benchmarking services,” says Charron.

“Social License”

In the rankings, it stands out that only five of eleven feed companies and nine of 35 salmon farming companies ranked as “Very Good” in the #Top35Salmon of Seafood Intelligence. And of the five feed companies that reported “Very Good”, three were in the “Excellent” category; while of the nine salmon farming companies that obtained “very good” (three being Chilean), four appear in the “Excellent” category (with only one being Chilean).

“Salmonid production has great prospects, but the industry needs to be responsible in ways that can be documented, both for its own internal good and to improve its biological, economic and, no less importantly, reputational performance, while gaining and maintaining its ‘social license’ to operate,” emphasizes Charron in dialogue with AQUA.

In his view, aquaculture and the so-called “Blue Revolution” have “tremendous potential” when it comes to feeding the growing world population. But can it develop amid poor image, lack of communication and transparency? The editor of Seafood Intelligence responds that the sustainability of the salmon industry, its growth and its ‘social license’ to operate are intrinsically and holistically linked.

“Acceptance is not only necessary at the local, political and community level, but also in the spheres of the global market. And sustainability reports and accountability contribute to that acceptance,” Charron concludes.